How Darkness Comes
by cloudmonet
Summary: Global Justice is closing in on Drakken and Shego, not realizing that they themselves are under surveillance by Central Asian Jihad, who plan to use Global Justice equipment and secret Chinese weapons for an attack on America.
1. Chapter 1

**How Darkness Comes**

**Part 1**

_Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Rufus, Monique, Felix Renton, Wade Load, Dr. Betty Director, Will Du, Dr. Drakken, Shego, Yori, Hirotaka, and several others who are mentioned but don't actually appear, are characters from the Kim Possible show, created by Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, owned and copyright © by the Walt Disney Company. The story takes place in February of Kim and Ron's sophomore year of college, nearly three years after "So the Drama," and shortly after my earlier story, "Finals Week." This is part one of a three part story, © 2005 by cloudmonet._

* * *

"You are the world's Drakken expert," Dr. Beatrice Director told Kim, freezing the picture of Drake Jones, a black-haired man with a suntan standing next to Crocodile Jack in the red center of Australia, on an episode about radio-tagging perentie lizards with robot ticks. "Do you think that's him?"

"He's wearing short sleeves and shorts and his skin's not blue," said Kim. "That's a lot of makeup to wear when it's a hundred and ten in the shade, and there's no shade."

"Drakken's skin may not be blue anymore," said Betty. "Our search engine found an interesting technical article by a Dr. Anna Ruiz of Lima, Peru, about treating a patient whose skin was turned blue by a freak biochemical accident. How many people like that are there?"

"Don't know," said Kim.

"The resemblance caught my attention. Drake Jones made robot ticks with radio beepers. Drakken could do that. And look at this frame from the sea turtle episode. Isn't that Greensleeves crewman the same Drake Jones?"

"Who saves whales and tags lizards. That's not even slightly evil. If he acts like Drakken I'll worry about him."

"I'm thinking what if Drakken mutated the lizards to make them really big, and somehow used them— He's done this sort of thing before, hasn't he?" asked Betty.

"That was Paolo Gonzales, the mad herpetologist," said Kim. "He used growth hormones to make giant gila monsters to help him smuggle illegal immigrants into Arizona."

"Hmm," said Betty, accessing some records from the master computer. "That arrest was made by the Arizona State Patrol, in conjunction with some shadowy vigilantes who call themselves the Night Rangers. Now why would this case be classified?"

"Cyrus Bortle," said Kim. "Nuff said?"

"I see," said Betty. "I also see you've been more active recently than I thought."

"Let's see, last semester, busted Monkey Fist twice, busted Gonzales, looked for Drakken, busted Fukushima and Sumo Ninja in China, you know about Perkins and Lars, saved Ron's parents from the Central Asian Jihad squad who hijacked their cruise ship, and a number of rescues that didn't involve bad guys."

"You left out Wanda Hu Khan," said Betty.

"That's a Z-12 weapon sitch," said Kim.

"I know. So was the China mission."

"Really? No wonder the authorities acted so strange."

"By the way, who's Yori?"

"One of the good guys. That's all I'm going to say about about her."

"I understand," said Betty. "Asia is a much more dangerous place for a free agent."

"You may notice I'm not courting publicity the way I used to, either," said Kim.

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Ron was waiting with the stealth bike on a street corner in front of a small office supply store. Kim put her finger to her lips and got into the driver's seat. Ron sat behind her and put his hands on her hips. They drove a few blocks, then Kim seemed to see what she wanted and drove around the block looking for a parking place. Kim put several quarters in the parking meter, holding her finger to her lips again. They walked a few storefronts to a purple sign saying "Inga's Swedish Sauna and Hot Tubs, by the hour."

"Here we are," said Kim.

"Um, okay," said Ron.

A bored-looking young brown haired woman wearing a blue dress, shawl, and gypsy scarves looked up from the magazine she was reading and said, "May I help you?"

"I'd like a sauna and tub," said Kim.

"Forty dollars, room four," she replied, taking Kim's money.

"Um, okay!" said Ron, with more enthusiasm.

"Though you'd appreciate a little treat," said Kim, smiling back at Ron as she led him upstairs.

Ron looked a alarmed when Kim turned the thermostat on the sauna up to the maximum setting. She made the gesture of silence with her finger to her lips, took off her engagement ring, and stuck it into its battery charger.

"Rufus, you stay out here," Ron told his faithful pet molerat, who peered out of his cargo pants pocket with curiosity.

Ron sat down on a wooden bench facing Kim in the dim steamy heat, feeling sweat running freely from every pore.

Kim made the gesture of silence again, whispered, "Stay where you are," and took off her towel, remaining standing. Ron wasn't sure what Kim was doing. Her intentions didn't seem romantic at all. In fact, she seemed to be in mission-mode.

Ron heard a steady electrical buzzing, an occasional puffing sound, his own shallow breathing, and a very light _tink!_ as something small fell to the tile floor.

"Gotcha!" said Kim, picking up a tiny round pink object the size of a bead. "I thought I felt something crawl up my leg. It's a robot tick. The steam either cooked it, or triggered a heat-sensitive shutoff switch. Probably it's just got a microphone and transmitter, although a camera isn't impossible." Kim put her towel back on, opened the sauna door, got out her engagement ring and used its blue laser to melt the device.

"My skin is as pink as Rufus," Ron said. "That was starting to hurt."

"It shut down the tick, and that's what matters. Let's talk about it later. Hey, Ron, I rented this hot tub and promised you a treat."

"Any more heat and my skin will come off."

Kim sat on the rim and put her feet in the water. "It's not so hot, really." She took off her towel and slipped in.

"You love to keep me confused," said Ron, sitting on the edge and testing the water with his feet.

"Nah, I just love _you,"_ she said, erupting out of the water into his arms and giving him a wet kiss.

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"It would help if you hadn't completely melted it," Wade said on Kim's dorm room computer.

"I know," Kim replied. "I was so sure that Global Justice was trying to monitor me, and so annoyed about it, that my only objective was to deactivate and destroy the tick without anyone knowing I knew about it."

"If you're right, that was the best thing to do. But a third party could have put bugs in the Global Justice office, and one of them just happened to crawl on you. Global Justice ticks look like bead sized pink blemishes when they're attached."

"Sounds like what I found."

"Either they don't trust you, or they're concerned about your safety. Distrust you— because your trail crosses what they think is Drakken's trail several times, and what's up with that? Concerned about your safety— Central Asian Jihad has been known to develop and hold serious grudges."

"You don't bug Kim Possible without permission."

They're cops," said Wade. "You know how they think. It is illegal to hide convicted felons. You can't be sentimental about them. So what if Shego's pregnant? Bad people have children all the time. What happened to the hard-nosed Kim Possible who busted Señor Senior Senior for stealing back his own money from a swindler?"

"She went to college," said Kim. "She took courses that made her think more deeply about the meaning of life."

"You should have studied engineering. It doesn't mess with your head as much."

"Is it so wrong to believe in the possibility of redemption?" Kim asked.

"Well, I don't think so, obviously, or I would have put someone else on their trail," said Wade.

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"Someone's in the house," Sheila said in the dark. Drake reached for the light switch. "The light's not working," he said.

"Oh, great," said Sheila, slipping out of bed and feeling around the wall for her robe hanging on the closet. "Where's that torch?"

"That what?" asked Drake.

"The flashlight. They call them torches in Australia. I'm trying to fit in."

"Isn't it on the nightstand?"

Suddenly the flashlight came on, shining right into Sheila's eyes, then Drake's, held by a ninja girl.

"Do I have the honor of speaking with Shego and Drakken?" she asked, "Or would you prefer Sheila and Drake?"

"Who are you?" asked Sheila, striking a defensive pose as well as she could, wearing a nightgown, a bathrobe, slippers, and nearly five months pregnant.

"You may call me Yori," the ninja girl said, pressing her hands together. "I come as a friend to warn you. They know about the blue man in the Peruvian rain forest. They know about Dr. Anna Ruiz's skin treatment. They know about Greensleeves and Crocodile Jack."

"They?" asked Drake.

"Doy! Global justice!" said Sheila.

"They want to check your fingerprints and DNA," said Yori. "You really should stay off television shows."

"I was supposed to be completely behind the scenes," Drake said in frustration.

"You're just too funny, Dr. D," said Sheila. "You could do your own show."

"Oh, yeah, getting bitten by a perentie is so funny."

"The way you did it, yeah."

Yori turned the flashlight off, threw down a smoke pellet, and disappeared.

"Weird ninja stuff," said Sheila.

"This is serious," said Drake. "We have to move again. New names, new credit cards, new everything. New career, I guess. Environmentalists thrive on publicity, and that's how I keep getting photographed."

"You thrive on publicity yourself, Dr. D," said Sheila. "You want people to appreciate how clever and important you are, and you're succeeding, but it's too late. The only free life we can have is a completely anonymous one."

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Will Du piloted his Global Justice hover jet over the Pacific Ocean towards Queensland, Australia. He spoke to his two co-agents on this mission, George Wind and Steve Rasp, "I understand you spent at least two months on guard duty at Drakken's Caribbean lair."

"That's right," said Steve Rasp, a large, deep voiced black man.

"And you have combat experience with diablo robots?"

"The only way to beat one short of a missile is to cut off the signal," said Steve.

"Diablo robots are in my opinion, a likely hazard," said Will. "Living in a small house on the edge of town, Drakken, or Drake Jones as he's calling himself, would not have space for his usual arsenal of doomsday devices. He could also have nanoexplosive charges attached to robotic ticks. Compared to Global Justice surveillance ticks, these are thicker but flatter on top, and a bit larger. He could also have handheld laser guns."

"What's the intelligence on Shego?" asked George Wind, a mild mannered man of Chinese descent.

"Uncertain. They may or may not have separated. There was a pregnant woman on the Greensleeves crew with pale skin and curly black hair who somewhat resembles Shego, but the best image isn't very good. This woman does not appear in the perentie episode."

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"Aw, now where's Drake?" Crocodile Jack asked with his thick Australian accent. "He said he'd have five of those microcamera ticks ready to go to Darwin, and there's nada in his lab, and no explanation."

"I'm worried," said Kate, his sensible American wife with the long wavy hair. "It's not like Drake to miss work. He loves building those little robot things. When was the last time anyone saw him, or Sheila?"

"Wasn't he here Monday?" Kelly asked Stan and Mick. "I thought I saw him, you know, said g'day and all that."

"Last I talked to him, he was pretty excited about going to Darwin," said Mick. "You know, putting a camera and tracker on the world's biggest saltwater croc."

"We can't do it without Drake's gear," said Jack. "Why'd he take his tools out of the lab, anyway?"

"Maybe he needed to take his work home to finish on time," said Kate.

Jack picked up his satellite phone and punched Drake's number. "No answer," he said after ten rings. "I'm going over there, and we'll see what's what. Drake better have a good explanation or he's fired, pronto!"

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Crocodile Jack drove his huge Nissan sports utility vehicle on the rutted track through the eucalyptus woods toward Drake and Sheila's isolated house. Suddenly he hit the brakes and pointed to a black airplane hovering over the building. "Is that what I think it is?" he asked Kate.

"Looks like some kind of military thing," she replied.

"A Global Justice hover jet— I think," said Jack.

"Could they be after Drake?"

"It would explain why he didn't want to be on camera."

"Wonder what he did? He seems like such a nice guy."

"Probably serial killer," said Jack. "They're always nice blokes to their neighbors and employers."

"You're kidding, right? Global Justice usually only gets involved in cases threatening international security," said Kate.

"Maybe he's a spy. He was making spy gear for us."

"That makes a lot of sense," said Kate. "Shouldn't we get out of here?"

"Nah, they'll think we're guilty and pursue us. This way, they just come up to the truck, I put my hands up and say, 'G'day, I'm Crocodile Jack, this bloke was an employee, I was coming to his house to find out where he is, didn't know he was wanted by the law,' and everything's fine, right?"

Kate got out her binoculars. "Something really weird's going down. Looks like three guys in uniform being taken prisoner by six masked guys wearing black." Jack got out his own, more powerful binoculars. "Aw, yeah, they caught three Global Justice agents. One of the guys in black's gone up the rope ladder into the plane and it's landing."

"Jack, let's get out of here!"

"Can I lose a Global Justice hover jet on a track? Ehhh, I think I better try."

"Don't race the engine and make lots of noise," said Kate.

"No worries, mate," he said, executing a bumpy K-turn fairly quietly, and rolling through the eucalyptus woods past some small, weathered shacks, to potholed pavement and slightly nicer houses and isolated trailers, and finally, better pavement and nice suburban homes. The Global Justice hover jet did not pass over town.

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"In there," grunted the swarthy man in black, holding a laser gun on the three Global Justice agents.

A bruised and battered Will Du turned the doorknob and walked into the back room of the abandoned cattle station, to find himself face to face with the evil mastermind himself, Dr. Drakken. The door closed behind him as a similarly battered George Wind and Steve Rasp were pushed in behind him.

"I'll tell you nothing," Will said firmly.

The man he thought was Drakken shrugged. "I didn't ask you anything" he said.

"Aren't those your henchmen outside?" Will asked.

"Doy! Central Asian Jihad," said a woman's voice from a chair in the corner. "You're some kind of cops, aren't you?"

"Global Justice agents, come to bring you back to justice, Shego and Drakken!" said Will.

"The name's Sheila Jones, Mrs. Jones to you," snapped the woman, who was several months pregnant and wearing a green and black maternity outfit, "and if this is about that speeding ticket last summer—"

"You'll pardon my wife's temper, officer," interrupted the man. "This whole experience has been most distressing for her."

"That's understandable, Mr. Jones," said Steve Rasp. "My partner is sometimes a bit zealous. It wouldn't be the first time a squad ever raided the wrong house, but you can understand his desire to make sure."

"And you got caught by the real bad guys, just like they caught us," said Sheila. "If I were you, I'd be wondering how they knew what you were doing."

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"So how do you like your new classes?" Monique asked Ron, as he took a bite out of his burrito. They were sitting in the student union cafeteria. Rufus, as usual, was nibbling on a bowl of nachos.

"So far, so good," he replied, wiping his mouth with his finger, and then using a paper napkin. "They usually start getting hard by about the third week, but maybe I'll be lucky this semester."

Kim came to the table with a grilled sandwich and a salad on her tray. "So are there any hot guys in your new classes?"

"I am so over being worried about that," said Monique. "All right, three that I've met, but I don't want to think about this stuff too much. My career, I'm getting that together. My man, he'll show up one of these days."

"Hey Monique," said a tall black boy wearing a green V-neck sweater over a dark blue T-shirt.

"Don't think this is the day," she muttered. "Hey Wendell, what do you want?"

"Can I sit with you?"

"I guess. You know my friends, Kim and Ron."

Wendell smiled and sat at the table. "Monique, I just want to tell you how sorry I am 'bout how I treated you."

"Yeah, I was sorry 'bout how you treated me, too, but now I really don't care. So go away and treat some other girl nice, and let me enjoy my lunch."

"Sorry if I interrupted you," Wendell said, and got up and walked away.

Monique sighed. "Was I rude? I guess I was rude. A girl can only take so much honey-tongued lying before she gets harsh, and believe me, I am so beyond harsh with that dude."

Kim patted her on the shoulder, saying, "It's okay, Monique. What's life without a little drama?"

_Dot dot dadot!_ beeped the kimmunicator.

"And, cue the drama," said Ron.

Kim chuckled. "What's the sitch, Wade?" she asked, but the face on the screen was an attractive short-haired woman with an eye patch. "Betty!" Kim exclaimed.

"Are you in a secure location?" she asked.

"Eating lunch in the student union with Ron and Monique."

"Anybody paying attention to you?"

Kim looked around the room. "Don't think so. You want to talk to me in my room? Can I finish my lunch?"

"It's life and death."

"Then talk to me! Whose lives?"

"Three agents, Du, Wind, and Rasp, kidnapped by Central Asian Jihad in Queensland. Listen carefully. You may have a Global Justice audio tick somewhere on your body that's been hacked by the Jihad—"

"Nope, not me," said Kim. "Knew it was there, shut it down, destroyed it."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you planted it."

"Kimberly, why—"

"It was one of your ticks. Go on with the sitch."

"I sent the agents to check out Drake Jones, who I guess slipped away. Crocodile Jack went to Jones' house, to check on him because he missed work, and saw the raid go horribly wrong. A Jihad squad now has three hostages and a Global Justice hoverjet."

"Do you have a way to track the plane?"

"Disabled, and that's not easy to do."

"At least one of the captive agents must have a hacked audio tick somewhere on his body. Can you trace that?"

"We're trying, but no luck so far. They could've changed the encryption."

"Ron, go get Felix," said Kim. "We're going to Australia."

"Uh, hey Kim," said Felix, who had quietly rolled up to the table.

"Hey," she replied. "Can you drop everything and fly us to Austrailia?"

"Got my homework with me. Let's do this," he replied.

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"This will not be easy," Yori whispered to Hirotaka, as dark clouds covered the stars. "May the wisdom of Master Sensei and the throwing skills of Master Koangaba be in me."

"And the spirits of all that is good in the world," he replied, pressing his hands together and bowing his head.

"Later on, I will see you again," Yori said, kissing Hirotaka on the cheek, and mouthed but gave no voice or whisper to the words, "my love."

Silently she crept closer to the cattle station, where a dim light shone in the window of one of the buildings. In the dry meadow, covered by camouflage netting, a Global Justice hoverjet was parked. Yori put her gloved hand on her boomerang, stood up, and threw it. As it spun through the air, the polished titanium reflected the light from the window. It disappeared as it twisted back into the shadows, and Yori caught it in her hand. Step by step, she edged closer to the plane and the house.

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"What's all this about, anyway?" Crocodile Jack asked Kim, while he drove his big Nissan up the rutted track to Drake and Sheila's house.

"That's what I hope to find out," she replied. "Most of what I know is what you told Betty."

"Betty? I talked to a bloke," said Jack.

"Whoever you talked to at Global Justice, then. Six terrorists captured three agents who were in turn after Drake and Sheila Jones."

"What did they do, Drake and Sheila?" asked Kate.

"Could be mistaken identity," said Kim. "Global Justice had the theory they could be Dr. Drakken and Shego— notice the similar names. I don't know if you had any personal experience with the diablo robot rampage a couple years back— little red toys that expanded into big robots."

"Aw, yeah, not round here mate, but Sydney, Melbourne, whole mess of damage. You're the one who shut that down."

"Me, Ron, and Rufus."

"Cute little molerat. I remember him from last time," said Jack. Rufus poked his head out of Ron's pocket, blinked a couple of times, and dove back in again.

"He sleeps more than he used to," said Ron. "He's getting older, I think."

"You should breed him, mate, he's really special."

"He certainly is," Kim agreed.

"So they think Drake is the bloke who made the diablo robots? That's wild. No wonder they hunted him down. Could it be true?"

"You seem to know him pretty well," said Kim. "What do you think?"

"I think that's ridiculous," said Kate.

"Aw, I've been fooled by people before," said Jack. "They're not like crocs. You pretty much know where a croc is at if you know how to read 'em. Not that they don't try to fool you or surprise you. This is the place."

Jack parked in the drive of a weatherbeaten house with bowed front steps, and a green Volkswagen bug in the carport.

"Not exactly your typical Drakken lair," remarked Ron, getting out of the back seat.

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Kim walked up the steps and slowly opened the door. A small green lizard darted out. "What a mess!" she said. Books and papers were strewn all over the room, a lamp was knocked over and broken, even a table was knocked over.

"This is such a shame," said Kate. "Sheila had this old house looking really nice and homey." Almost instinctively, she started picking up.

"Don't touch stuff," said Kim. "There may be clues in this."

"There was one heck of a fight here," said Jack. "That's clear."

"Scorch on this wall," said Ron. "Whoa, I can see through it. It's a laser cut, Kim."

Kim carefully stepped over the debris to look. "Oh great, the Jihad has laser guns. On one hand, they're easier to deflect than bullets. All you need is a mirror. On the other hand, you've got to have your mirror in exactly the right place and angle before the blast. It always goes exactly where it's aimed, so if you judge right, you won't get sliced in half."

"And there's no defense like anti-explosive foam," said Jack.

"Not against the simpler laser guns," said Kim. "The fancier ones you can muck up with a silicon phase disrupter. I just learned this a couple weeks ago."

"This was done with a cheap one," said Ron. "Or else the battery was running low. They'll have Global Justice guns now, but a silicon phase disrupter won't stop these either."

In the bedroom there was broken plaster on one wall. The closet pole was broken, and most of the clothes were on the floor. There was a pile of women's magazines on the night table knocked slightly askew, and one fallen on the floor. Kim picked up the fallen one and looked at it. There was a photograph of a pretty Asian woman in a bikini on the cover, and titles of the articles inside. "Monique has this issue, but hers looks different. The Chinese characters next to the girl aren't on her copy."

"This is probably the Asian edition—" said Ron. "Wait a minute!"

"What?"

"This is Japanese. I know what it says. I just don't know what it means."

"Go on—"

"It's Yori's signiature," said Ron.

"She was here then, and wanted to let us know," said Kim. "This is a message anyone else would have missed. So, Yori's involved. She was here, before the fight. Why?"

"Does Wade know?" asked Ron. "He's got some way to contact her."

"Yes, he does," said Kim, pulling out the kimmunicator. "Talk to me, Wade, 4-1-1, Yori, Australia."

Wade wasn't in his bedroom, but his underground engineering lab. "Code gray," he replied.

"Oh, really?"

Just then a loud motorcycle engine approached the house, parked, and shut off.

"That's a motorcycle, right? That'll be Hiro. He'll give you 4-1-1. Wade out." The screen went blank.

"What's all that mean?" asked Jack.

"Never mind," said Kim. "Let's go meet Hirotaka."

Kim and Ron stepped over the mess to the front door, followed by Jack and Kate. Hirotaka took off his helmet, releasing a wild shock of black hair.

"I know where they are," he said. "Four hundred kilometers. We should hurry."

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The golden light of the setting sun shone through the dust and cobwebs veiling the small window of the second storey room. Heavy booted feet clomped up the narrow stairway outside the locked door. The door unlocked and opened. Will Du staggered in with a freshly-swollen black eye and ripped shirt. "Shego," he gasped. "You can get us out of here. I know you can. Please, why won't you?"

"You know, Will," Sheila replied, getting up from her chair and moving closer to him, "even if they all went away and left us here alone, we're in the middle of the outback." She frowned, gesturing silence while looking very closely at Will's head, in particular his ears. "Mm-hmm," she continued, looking behind his ears. "We'd die of thirst long before we reach the nearest station." She grimaced and let a tiny blast of green plasma go from her index finger that was almost touching what looked like a pink mole behind Will's right ear. She pulled it off, flipped it over, and showed him the gripping legs. She whispered, "You tell me, sport, and just nod or shake, there any working trucks outside?"

Will nodded, "But the plane—" he whispered.

"Shhh!" Sheila hissed. "They'll expect us to go for the plane." She quickly stepped over to Steve Rasp, and said aloud, "What do you expect me to do, anyway? You're Global Justice cops. I'm just Sheila Jones, five months pregnant. I'm not Shego, whoever she is."

Drake grabbed her, pulled her into the corner, and whispered, "What are you doing?"

"What needs to be done," she whispered back. "Just shut up and let me do it." She pulled away from him. "I'm scared, Will, I'm really scared," she told Steve, while looking behind his ears. She found the tick under his uniform collar and zapped it with her finger.

George Wind held a small pink bead with wiggling robotic legs. He dropped it on the windowsill. "They're gonna kill us, I know," Sheila said, then zapped the tick with her finger. "Easy, baby, easy," she said, putting her left hand on her stomach, while wiping dust from the window with her other hand. "Baby's so gonna hate this, but we need a distraction, fast!"

There were sounds of men moving downstairs.

Sheila pressed both hands against the glass, grunted hard. Her arms glowed with green light, green flames burst around her hands, and a big blast of green light went through the window to some dry grass next to the barn door. "Ow, pain!" Sheila said as the door burst into flames, and then a fireball exploded. "Ha, ha! They were storing fuel in there! Hope they didn't see me start it. So we jump to the ground, run to the truck, and I'm driving. Any arguments?"

Sheila aimed a blast of green plasma at another wall and blew a hole in it. The three agents and Drake scrambled behind her through the hole into an empty room, this one with a small window facing east, which Sheila peered through before blasting a big hole right next to it. The building made some alarming cracking noises.

"Jump!" Sheila said, diving through the hole with her left hand holding her belly, flying through the air, and somehow tumbling to the ground unhurt. The agents followed. Drake backed through the hole, hung by his arms, and dropped a short distance. Will led them toward the truck.

"Stop right there," said a black-bearded man wearing a baseball cap, pointing a laser pistol.

"Don't think so," Sheila said, blasting green plasma that knocked him back against the wall. She opened the door to the truck, a king cab, with all four men were already crowded in and crouching, Drake in the front passenger seat. "Hotwire me, Drake," Sheila said, tearing the makeup mirror off the passenger side sunflap while he bent down to fuss with the wires.

"Ow!" he said, as a spark burned his fingers.

The starter motor kicked in, the engine started. Sheila backed out of the parking spot onto the track, stomped hard on the brake while gunning the engine, then with a thick cloud of dust, roared, rumbled, and bumped away in the twilight.

"Stay down below the windows, everyone!" said Sheila, grabbing the mirror and putting it behind her head just as a pinpoint laser fired. "Oooh, that looks like it went right back where it came from."

She kept gunning the engine and spinning the tires to throw up as much dust as possible to scatter the laser blasts.

"Will!" she said. "That hoverjet of yours, does it have missiles, bombs, laser cannons, stuff like that? How worried should we be if they take to the air?"

"It's got a car catcher," he replied. "Big gripper claws."

"Okay, that's bad. How long do you think it'll take them to pull off that tarp and get airborn?"

"Couple minutes," he said. "They might not know how to work the car-catcher. I don't think it's something we discussed."

"Can't count on that," said Sheila. "Whatever they're up to, it's well planned, and we're improvising. But you asked me to get you out, so I'm doing my best."

The track went around the side of a low hill, putting the station buildings and barn on fire out of sight. "You can sit up now, but duck again if I say so," Sheila said. The rusty king cab was going bumpity bump at about sixty kilometers an hour on a track more suited for twenty.

Suddenly a black jet passed low overhead, over the hill toward the station.

"I think we just got lucky," said Sheila.

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Kim, Ron, and Hirotaka stripped off their parasails and snuck through the shadows from shed to truck to outhouse, avoiding the burning barn.

"There's been some ruckus already," Kim said. "I wonder if the agents escaped."

"With Yori helping, most probably," said Hirotaka.

"There's three, four guys pulling the tarp off the plane," said Ron. "Should we rush 'em?"

"Not sure. Let's move closer," said Kim.

Ron, who was always looking nervously at every possible source of danger, pointed out the hole high up the east wall of the house.

"Good, they're free, so we can protect the plane," said Hirotaka, using a slingshot to fire a smoke pellet at the hatch.

Kim aimed her grappling hook gun at a wooden water tank tower and fired. Hirotaka and Ron ran toward the smoke. Hirotaka grabbed a terrorist from behind and pulled him to the ground. He broke another smoke pellet as laser fire broke through the thinning smoke. Ron threw some punches at another one, but found himself hurled out of the smoke to the ground. He rolled the moment he landed, avoiding a laser blast. Kim, swinging through the air, kicked someone to the ground and began beating him. He was able to throw her off.

In a moment, the hoverjet rose into the air, blowing away the smoke. All six men were crowded under the bubble.

"Here's hoping this works," said Kim, aiming her handheld silicon phase disrupter. The jet continued to rise. "Shielded!" she said in disgust, shutting it off. "Did we at least get any of them?" she asked, looking around, but saw only Hirotaka and Ron, who was staggering to his feet.

She pulled out the kimmunicator. "Wade, Felix, plan B. Track them to the ends of the Earth."

"You got it," said Wade.

"I see them, I'm circling around, I'll follow them," said Felix.

"If they enter hostile airspace," said Kim, "follow Wade's directions." "I will," said Felix.

But then, just when the hoverjet shot forward, it shimmered and disappeared.

"I lost it," said Wade. "I'm looking for a vapor trail, but the air's too dry."

"Global Justice must have adapted Drakken's advanced cloaking technology," said Kim. "I didn't know this."

"News to me," said Wade.

"So Central Asian Jihad has an invisible plane? This is hideous!"

* * *

_Continued in part 2_


	2. Chapter 2

**How Darkness Comes**

**Part 2**

_Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Rufus, Monique, Felix Renton, Wade Load, Dr. Betty Director, Will Du, Dr. Drakken, Shego, Yori, and Hirotaka are characters from the Kim Possible show, created by Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, owned and copyright © by the Walt Disney Company. This is part two of a three-part story, © 2005 by cloudmonet._

* * *

On a rutted track near an old cattle station somewhere in western Queensland, Sheila and Drake Jones, who worked for Crocodile Jack's Zoo, and Will Du, Steve Rasp, and George Wind, three Global Justice agents, sat in the king cab of a rusty pickup truck under the moonless stars, uncertain what to do next.

Suddenly, the digital radio turned itself on, and a deep voice said, in the manner of a disk jockey, "This is Wade Load, broadcasting to your ears at 105.5 on the FM dial. This request goes out to Will, Steve, and George with hugs from Kimberly Ann. Come back to the ranch, all is forgiven."

"Very funny, nerd!" said Sheila, making a K-turn.

"Was I supposed to understand that?" asked Will. "Getting private messages from a radio broadcast is supposed to be a sign of schizophrenia."

"You know what it means. She whupped the terrorists and now she wants to make sure you guys are all right."

"She didn't mention us," said Drake.

"Doy! No one cares if we get kidnapped."

"Jack cares. We were supposed to go to Darwin, to tag that super croc."

"Hmm. Kim might know we're missing."

————————

A young Japanese man in black leather with wild hair ran to the truck as it pulled back to the station. "Where is Yori?" he asked, sounding very worried. Kim came running up beside him, leaving Ron hosing down the burning barn.

"Sheila?" asked Kim. "What happened here?"

"Will Du asked me to bust out, so I set the barn on fire as a distraction and busted out. Good thing I did, or the bad guys would've had a bunch of hostages when you showed up. You beat 'em, right?"

"Tried to. They got away with the plane, the _invisible_ plane!"

"That's why I wanted to fight for it, Shego!" said Will Du.

"Doy on me!" said Sheila, slapping her forehead. "You couldn't say why because of the bugs." She got out of the driver's seat and flipped the seat to let the agents out.

"First thing's first," said Kim. "We need to dig a scratch line around the fire. There's not enough water here to put it out. Felix took the jet to try to get a water scoop to douse the fire, but I haven't heard back from him."

"First thing is where is Yori?" Hirotaka said.

"She came to our house before the terrorists to tell us— something," said Drake. "I haven't seen her since."

"I left her here. Where did she go? I must search for her." Hirotaka sat down on the ground in full lotus position and closed his eyes.

"Funny way to look for someone," said Steve Rasp.

"For someone with whom you share a deep bond, it can be the quickest way," said George Wind. "Mysterious east stuff, you wouldn't understand."

"Oh, okay," said Steve.

"The fire, the fire," said Kim, and they all left Hirotaka by the truck in trance.

————————

When the barn was reduced to glowing embers and Kim was sure the fire would burn out, they went into the house and sat on the couches and chairs in the one room that had any furniture. Kim lit the kerosene lamp.

"Hirotaka's still meditating," said Ron. "I hope he finds her. I'm worried too."

"Yori's pretty formidable," said Kim.

"Okay, Will, George, Steve, you want to talk to us about who we are," said Sheila. "But you're cops, and the first thing cops always say is, 'Anything you say can be used against you,' so—"

"Can you agree that anything said here and now never leaves this room?" asked Kim.

"This is irregular," said Will.

"Dude, all we need is fingerprints and hair samples, and they're put away for life," said Steve. "This isn't about confession. This is about what we owe Sheila for saving our butts. You asked her to save us, and she did, even though it revealed who she and Drake used to be. They could have slipped away in the night with that truck, but they stayed to fight the fire." He looked at Sheila. "I'm having a hard time seeing you, a real hero, and your nature-loving husband, as the same people who made and unleashed those diablo robots, tried to cover Wisconsin with magma, and made numerous other attempts to conquer the world or wreak havoc that were just plain freaky. What happened to Drakken and Shego? How'd they become Drake and Sheila Jones?"

Sheila made a funny nervous face. "Uh— short answer, the prison system works, and we reformed, cause we don't want to spend the rest of our lives there."

"Yes, we kind of enjoy our freedom," Drake said.

"Just how much freedom would anyone else have had if you had conquered the world?" Steve asked.

"I changed my mind about that, okay?" said Drake.

"We don't want to think about thinking like that," said Sheila. "It was like a compulsion, 'I'm Drakken. I'm important. I'm ruling the world.' Believe me, if you _ever_ met his mom! But we always failed. You can't take over the world without huge armies fighting World War Three. I see that now. That's why the schemes got lame. It didn't matter, whatever, it wasn't gonna work. I think Kim was laughing at us while she was fighting us. But now we're doing better. For the first time in Drake's life, he's successful! Small victories, perhaps, but not small to the Peruvian Indians whose rain forest he helped save. Not small to the Greensleeves crew or the whales. Not small to Crocodile Jack. And maybe what I did for you wasn't small either."

"Steve and I guarded your Caribbean lair," said George Wind. "The environment was disturbing, to say the least."

"I was into this Goth thing, always wearing black, letting my hair shade my face, wearing black lipstick, saying, 'I am evil,' just to be different. My brother Herman is as annoying as Drake's mom. I really went evil. I stole stuff. I went to work for a mad scientist with a superiority/inferiority complex. Blue skin, punk hair, like Dr. Frankenstein and his monster rolled into one. A Goth girl's dreamboy. You wanna take over the world? Yeah, right, whatever— but at least it's a wild party with lasers and robots. Prison? Who cares? I can bust us out again. I was so stupid. I thought it was fun, fighting and hurting people with my green glow."

"That shows you had some self-control, doesn't it?" asked Steve. "I saw you blast holes through wood and plaster. I know you can blast through rock, concrete, even steel. But when you blast people, they're just stunned."

"That's just how my power works, Steve. Think about it. If my glow blew up or burned people, it'd burn me."

"Have you ever killed anyone?" asked George.

"I tried to kill Kim, a number of times. I hated that girl. She was everything I could never be. I used to be a hero, for a little while at least, but nobody loved me the way people love her. Shego always had to wear a mask while she was saving people, like a super clown from a comic book. Nobody knew Sheila Goble was anyone special. One day Shego took off her mask and went bad. Take your secret identity and stuff it, Herman! I don't know how many times Kim and I fought. I hated her so much—" Sheila's eyes started watering up as she looked at Kim's concerned face. "—and now she's my friend. She hated me, too, but she just let it go."

Kim reached over, touched Sheila's hand, and then the two women were hugging.

"That's what's wrong with being an amateur," said Will. "You form personal relationships with people from your cases. It clouds your judgment."

"This is what it's all about," argued Kim. "Best possible result, bad girl turns good! This woman saved your life, knowing it could cost her her freedom, or at least the new identity she's worked so hard to build. Doesn't she deserve personal treatment?"

"What about you, Drake?" asked Steve. "You're not saying much. Your wife's doing all the talking."

"We made a deal in Peru. We do what Sheila says is okay."

The doorknob turned, the door opened. Two cyber-robotic tentacles gripped the top of the doorframe, and retracted, lifting Felix and his wheelchair up to floor level. "The doorway's not wide enough for me to float through," he explained. "I dropped the water, and the fire's out. So what's happening here?"

"We're discussing how darkness comes to human souls, and how it goes away," said Steve.

————————

"Hirotaka," said Kim, gently touching him on the shoulder. "Felix is back." He startled, and dropped less than an inch to the ground.

"He was floating, Kim, to make his spirit float much farther," Ron explained.

Hirotaka wiped tears from his eyes and stood up. "Is it time to go?" he asked.

"Did you find her?" Kim asked quietly.

"I weep for my love

stranded in hidden mountains

cold with plans of death,"

said Hirotaka. "Yori is hidden aboard the hoverjet."

"Let's hope you're mistaken," said Will Du. "If she stowed aboard our jet, she must be a hostage— or worse. There's nowhere for her to hide."

"Not for you, perhaps," said Hirotaka.

————————

Snow thinly covered the barren mountains somewhere in central Asia where the almost invisible Global Justice hoverjet settled to a landing in the darkness. Four bearded men wearing black clothes and turbans, and one who was clean-shaven got out of the plane, shimmering into sight as they stepped off the ramp onto the stony ground. The pilot, who was also clean shaven, shut off the engine, turned off the cabin lights, and as he did, the hoverjet became visible, a darker form against the dim stones and starlit snow.

A bunch of shadowy men with dark turbans came out of a cave, carrying a large tarp, mottled like the stones, which they all pulled over the plane.

Inside the plane, in a hidden place, a black hooded ninja girl saw the dark tarp cloaking the bubble and pulled off the black communicator clipped to her belt, pressed the button, and whispered, "Wade!"

She heard rustling outside, boots on the ramp, and people entering the plane carrying automatic rifles and laser guns. She quieted her breathing, faded into something that no non-ninja would ever notice.

The men were speaking a language she didn't know, but she was recording and streaming what they said.

————————

Wade jumped out of bed to the sound of a computer alarm, a sudden flood of information coming from a remote source via several satellites. Preliminary automatic analysis seemed to show a growing sound file encrypted with the new protocol he shared with Yori, but it was coming from some remote mountains inhabited only be certain obscure Asian tribes, and probably, Central Asian Jihad.

Caution was called for. Some of these guys were skilled computer geeks whose viruses and worms were difficult to detect when inactive. The "Blood of the Martyrs" worm was especially annoying. It would cause a computer to shout, "Death to infidels!" followed by bullet holes appearing in whatever was on the screen, which would quickly bleed to make the entire screen turn red, and then the computer would shut down, and there'd be no way to restart it without replacing the hard disk.

So Wade took every precaution, disconnecting or turning off a lot of equipment, before he dared try to unscramble or listen to the file.

"Wade!" whispered Yori's voice, but she said nothing more, and after a short period of silence and some bumping noises, several men spoke in a language Wade didn't know, he guessed either Arabic or some local tongue. After a couple of minutes of this, they stopped, made more bumping noises, then silence. Yori whispered, "I'm okay, on the Global Justice plane, can't fly it without removing the tarp, don't know where I am. Don't beep, don't talk, text only. Yori out."

With a sigh of relief, Wade reconnected and restarted his other computers, and began typing a message to Yori, telling her exactly where she was. It was not a good place.

————————

Early morning on the outskirts of a small town in Queensland, Kim and Ron were helping Drake and Sheila straighten up their home, hoping against hope that the crocodile-cam robot ticks would show up unharmed, somewhere under the mess. Hirotaka was sleeping on the bed.

Will Du was on the phone, trying to get through the Global Justice voice-mail system, which he apparently hadn't used for awhile, since all the access codes he remembered were leading him in circles.

Kim rolled her eyes, went over to Will Du to offer him the kimmunicator when it beeped at her. She went outside on the porch, where Steve Rasp and George Wind were drinking sodas on the front steps, hopped to the ground, and said "What's the sitch?" to a very frazzled and worried looking Wade.

"Kim, Yori's on the plane. She's okay, for now. I've got her coordinates, but—"

"No buts, Wade, give them to me."

"Extreme caution is called for. This could be Jihad central headquarters. I'll know more when I get Yori's recording translated."

"Wade, I've got Will Du of Global Justice here. He probably knows whatever language they're speaking."

"We found two!" Drake said excitedly, when Kim stepped back into the house.

"That's nice," said Kim. "Will, I need your help. Wade's got a recording of some terrorists talking on your hoverjet, and we need a translation."

————————

Crocodile Jack pulled off the track in front of the house. "Drake said he found three of the robocams, but then the phone went busy again."

"I hope Drake and Sheila can come to Darwin," said Kate.

"I don't know," said Jack. "Looks like Global Justice guys on the porch." He walked to the steps. "G'day, mates, I'm Crocodile Jack," he said, extending his right hand.

"I'm agent Steve Rasp of Global Justice," said the tall black man.

"I'm agent George Wind," said the short Asian man. "I would like to thank you for reporting our kidnapping."

"Can you tell me what's up with my good mates Drake and Sheila? They in some kind of trouble?"

"No comment," said Steve. "I'm willing to defer to Miss Possible's judgment for now."

"Ah, well, as Jake's employer, I'd kind of like to know—"

"Go on in and talk about it," said George.

He stepped inside and Kate followed.

"G'day, Jack, Kate," said Drake. "So good to see you. We found four video croc ticks so far, and they're all fully operational."

"Aw, yeah, mate, we were so worried. A terrorist cell in the outback, never thought I'd see it."

"They got what they wanted, too," said Will Du. "Our plane, thanks to Sheila!"

"I just did what you begged me to do!" she protested. "None of you were in any condition to fight. I barely got us away in the truck!"

"Hey!" Steve said to Will, with a bit of menace in his voice. "I don't want to hear you _ever_ bad-mouth Sheila for what she did last night. So they got the plane. We know where it is. Why don't we go get it back?"

"Us and what army?" asked Will. "There's dozens of them, maybe hundreds."

"There's at least three armies prowling around those mountains who'd just love to find these guys," said Steve Rasp.

"No good, no good," said Kim. "We don't want Yori killed."

"She went on board that plane risking self sacrifice so that we could learn these things and stop those terrorists," said Will. "If they carry out their plan, millions of people will die."

"So let's stop them," said Kim. "We've got me and Ron, Hirotaka, three of Global Justice's best guys, Felix with my jet and all my gear, and Yori on the inside. We can do this."

"And you've got me— if you want me," Sheila.

"Oh, yeah, I'm voting you in," said Steve.

"Am I missing something here?" asked Crocodile Jack. "You can't take Sheila on a dangerous mission. She's got a little baby inside."

With a whoosh! Sheila's hands were enveloped in green flames. "You might say I have special abilities," she said, and with a sucking noise, the flames went out. She put her hands on her swollen belly and whispered, "Calm down. It's okay."

"Whoa!" said Crocodile Jack.

"That's amazing," said Kate.

"Sheila knows the ancient discipline of flaming hands," said Hirotaka. "I can't imagine where she learned it."

"Is it okay for a pregnant woman to do?" asked Kate.

"My baby doesn't like it, but this is a world emergency," said Sheila. "Drake, you take those cam ticks to Darwin for Jack and break a leg, okay?"

"Sure thing, dumpling," he replied.

————————

A small black jet with KP monogrammed on the tail flew over the Indian Ocean away from the morning sun. Inside, Felix's wheelchair was locked in position at the controls. Kim, Ron, Hirotaka, Sheila, George, and Steve, were listening to Will run down his translation of the terrorists' conversation:

"So this plane really is invisible."

"We should use it with the dragonslayer, fly to somewhere or somewhere, uh huh, mm hmm."

"They couldn't get the dragonslayer."

"With this, we can get it ourselves."

"Perhaps they have moved it or tightened security."

"We can look. If they don't have the dragonslayer, maybe they have other stuff we can use. With a Chinese weapon, maybe America will blame China, instead of us. They don't trust China."

"The governments talk."

"That's why we must use the dragonslayer. Then there will be no government, no mountain bunker. It will all be a big crater. The rest will be buried in ash or burn."

"If we go tonight, drop some ticks on the lab, then monitor them for a few days, uh huh, mm hmm."

————————

Hirotaka raised his hand.

"Yes?" asked Will.

"The weapons lab of Dr. Fu that Yori guarded. It's one of several on the stony plain. This might be the place they want to plunder."

"Do you have any idea what a dragonslayer is?"

"I think I do," said Kim. "The Chinese word for dragon is also their word for dinosaur. Many people believe the dinosaurs were killed by the asteroid impact that made the Chixulub crater. From their talk of a crater, I guess the dragonslayer is some kind of superbomb, maybe something like the pan-dimensional vortex inducer, or something made with encapsulated antimatter that detonates on incineration. Either thing could be no larger than a big soup can."

"What kind of security clearance do you have, Kim?" Will asked her.

"I just know about this stuff because I've saved it," she replied.

"Usually from people like Shego and Drakken," said Will.

"Hey!" said Sheila. "Give me some credit here. I'm five months pregnant, I'm not in prime fighting shape, but I'm fighting for you. What do I have to do to prove to you I really have changed? Do we both have to die, me and my daughter, before you believe in me?"

"Nobody's going to die," Kim said firmly.

"We have the best non-lethal weapons in the world," said Ron, and Rufus the molerat hopped on his shoulder, nodding agreement. "We came well-stocked for a battle with terrorists in mountain caves, thinking, ehhh, when they kidnapped you, maybe they'd go straight to Central Asia. Now this—" Ron opened a cabinet and pulled out a long gun with a two centimeter barrel.

"We're fighting terrorists with paintball guns," said Will Du.

"Correction— paintball _rifles,"_ said Ron, "and funny thing, the paintballs are actually filled with antiexplosive foam reagents which mix on impact."

"What!" said Will. "That's—"

"That's a great idea," said Steve Rasp. "Why didn't our boys think of using foam that way?"

"Are you kidding? No way can one of these balls have sufficient reagent—"

"Wade's first idea was a big squirt gun, like a handheld version of your hoverjet sprayer," said Ron. "This works pretty well, but we learned a lot of reagent gets wasted instead of mixed when you spray it. For a cave or small building a few balls is plenty, and these bad babies have _range!"_

"Okay, that takes out the gunpowder guns," said Steve, "but what about the lasers?"

"The ones they had at the cattle station were those cheap Korean blasters," said Sheila. "Zap, zap, zap, zap, and, oops, the battery's dead, and needs a twelve-hour recharge. Most of 'em are probably dead by now, or will be soon."

"I wouldn't count on that," said Will.

"I'm not counting on it, just telling you my own personal experience," said Sheila. "You can't put better batteries in 'em, either. You'll either blow a circuit breaker, or get a blast so powerful it melts the gun."

"So if they're still using cheap Korean blasters, they couldn't override the lock on the Global Justice guns," said Ron.

"Let's not run down specs of our gear in front of Shego," said Will. "That is why they kept beating us. They wanted to know how to unlock our guns."

"Sport, what do you think I don't know about your guns?" asked Sheila. "They're better than Korean, got about fifty to seventy good blasts in 'em before they need recharging, but hacking the software security is impossible, and somehow I doubt these bearded whackos have the finesse to strip 'em apart and rewire the hardware to bypass that— at least, not yet."

Will glared at Sheila.

"Okay, we don't have any defense against the lasers, which may or may not be a problem," said Steve. "What about offense?"

"In our experience, the antiexplosive foam applied at close range works pretty well," said Kim. "They can't fight very well while they're coughing and choking on foam. Kinda stings the eyes, too, since we added a bit of pepper juice to the mix."

"You know, Will, I think Kim knows what she's doing," said Steve.

Then Kim and Ron passed out their triple spindle grappling hook guns. Steve Rasp and George Wind studied theirs with open-mouthed wonder. Even Will Du seemed impressed.

————————

"We're over India now," Felix announced. "Potentially hostile air space in about two minutes."

"Wade couldn't get clearance?" asked Kim.

"Not on such short notice, not from these folks."

"So pro and so amateur at the same time," Will said with disgust. "Can you get me through to Dr. Director?"

"No," said Kim. "We can go higher than any Russian fighter jets these upland countries throw at us, but if Washington learns where we're going, there's no arguing with them or evading their stuff. They don't know who Yori is, and they really don't want her dead, but she's the only one likely to get killed if the American forces get involved."

"Remember those little ticks Sheila found on you?" Ron asked. "What do you bet some people in the American command have them, too? How do you think Strong Horse always knows where to hide and when he's been located?"

"Circling back to climb," said Felix. "Kim, you should take the copilot chair in case there's air action."

"Let's take her up to sixteen miles," she said, sitting down. "That gets rid of just about everything but the bigger missiles."

————————

Kim got out of the copilot's chair, put on her jumpsuit, helmet, parasail pack, and ran down a checklist of gear. "We know exactly where the cave entrances are, and where the hoverjet is, and everyone knows their target. Any questions?"

"Yes," said Will. "If Wade uses the same spy satellites as the American command, how does he know more about these caves than they do?"

"Better data analysis," said Kim. "Anything else?"

The plane tipped to change direction and plunged into a steep dive. "Line up in bail order," said Felix. "Will first, then Steve, Hirotaka, George, Sheila, Kim, Ron." George and Hirotaka switched places. "Hit the nylon immediately, we will be bailing at the bottom."

"That's insane," said Will.

"Nobody's gonna expect it, and nobody's gonna shoot," said Ron. "Not till it's too late."

"It'll put us each exactly where we wanna be," said Kim.

"If I can do it, you guys should be able to do it," said Sheila.

The side door opened. Will tumbled out, followed by the others. Parasails opened, each one coasted to a landing, stripped off the chute, and scrambled to position.

————————

The two terrorists who were outside, as Kim had hoped, presumed this was some sort of attack and ran to defensive positions near one mouth of one of the caves. George Wind, who was closest to them, took aim with his paintball rifle and fired a ball which splattered into a rapidly expanding cauliflower of blue foam.

A wild sputtering of automatic weapons fire mixed with laser blasts came from behind a rock partially shielding the main cave entrance. Will Du got a couple of paintballs behind the rock. The rapidly expanding foam silenced most of the weapons. Ron and Hirotaka rushed toward a closer position and shot paintballs through the existing foam deeper into the cave.

Kim swung from her grappling hook line to land on top of the entrance rock. A number of men wearing turbans and coarse brown clothing erupted through the foam with laser guns. They were sputtering, gagging, rubbing their eyes, and blasting randomly. Kim kicked the closest one's head, knocking him into another. Hirotaka was demonstrating mastery of several styles of Kung Fu against opponents unable to see the beauty of his moves. Ron was moving his fists and feet in ways that seemed completely random if not ridiculous, but neverless knocking them down.

Wearing a mottled gray turban and weatherstained brown clothes that served to hide him well against some large boulders, a sniper with a laser took aim at the red haired American vixen who seemed to be the leader. A fat man— no, a pregnant woman in a gray jumpsuit spun toward him with her arms raised, as though surrendering, perhaps, but then her hands erupted with green flame and a blast of force like an explosion knocked him back against some boulders. He lost consciousness. Only his thick turban protected his skull from being split.

Clutching her belly and grimacing in pain, Sheila looked around for other snipers.

Steve Rasp and George Wind were swinging and winching themselves through the air toward a now silent hidey hole erupting blue foam. Will Du scrambled around the other side.

————————

"The plane!" Sheila shouted, as some men on the far side of the hoverjet pulled off the tarp. "Yori! Fight!" she yelled, running up the slope toward the plane. "I'm so out of shape," she muttered. She fired her grappling hook at the plane, hooked onto something, jumped into the air, blasted herself higher with green plasma, and winched herself sideways at maximum speed.

Inside the plane, as the tarp slid off, Yori heard a woman's voice yell, "The plane!" then, "Yori, fight!" She crept like a panther to the trapdoor, forced it open, and lept to the ground, silvery boomerang in hand, before the ramp opened completely.

There were three men there. In a flash they had knives in their hands, not wanting to risk damage to the hoverjet. Yori threw her boomerang, which wobbled in front of her, spun like a propeller, then suddenly flew toward the men, konking one of them on the head as he dodged to the side, as if it could follow him no matter which way he turned. The second man was kicked in the head by Yori while mesmerized by her boomerang's silvery antics, and the third one grabbed from behind by Sheila, who gave him a zap of plasma through his forehead with her finger, knocking him out.

Unfortunately, there weren't just three men, but a whole squad of about twenty climbing up the other side, some of them already stained by blue antiexplosive foam, a few wearing goggles, gas masks, or other face protection.

"They're learning fast," Sheila said.

Yori threw her titanium boomerang so that it knocked off the turbans of a couple of the terrorists from behind, causing sudden cloth in the face and unexpected stumbles. It came back, flew over Yori's head, bounced off the hoverjet behind her, and landed at her feet. "I should've caught that," she said, throwing it directly at the closest one's chest, knocking the wind out of him.

Suddenly a hail of paintballs came down on the terrorists from one side, quickly expanding to a frothing slippery goo. Yori snatched back her boomerang and backed away. Sheila also backed away, firing plasma blasts to knock down the terrorists in gas masks, then just anyone she could see in the sputtering fog.

Kim and Ron seemingly came out of nowhere, spinning and furiously punching and kicking the surprised terrorists. Yori instantly joined them. Sheila lit her hands and sent all the pain she could possibly muster into the turbaned man who was punching at her. Hirotaka rotated through the air and kicked his head. "You're tired, back off!" Hirotaka told Sheila, and she didn't argue, but ran quickly to a position offering both cover and view.

"Not so much the hero, now," said what had become her least favorite voice.

"You don't know what this does to me," she told Will Du, making a brief flash of angry green flames in her hands. "When I start having flashbacks of the time Kim's fists flew at me so fast I couldn't dodge 'em anymore and went flying backwards thirty feet through the air to slam into a concrete wall, I know I'm drained. So what? You're taking a breather, too."

George Wind charged into the fray, and showed that he also had considerable skill in the martial arts.

"Looks like we're winning," said Steve Rasp. "I think we'd better watch the perimeter just in case somebody tries to—"

"Get aboard the plane?" asked Sheila, as suddenly the ramp closed and the plane became nearly invisible, even before taking off in a wind that blew sand and snow in the air.

————————

"We won the battle, but lost the objective," said Kim.

"That tanks," said Ron.

"We do have a tracking device on board," said Yori. "I left my communicator hidden in a storage cabinet, turned on. Wade says he can't get a signal with the plane's invisibility on, but whenever they land and shut down the engines, we'll know where they are."

"Wade, get me the American Base Commander in Kabul," Kim said to her kimmunicator. "Baby Bear Branson, this is Knockout, do you read, over?"

"Knockout, what are you doing on my computer monitor?"

"Better encryption. Listen, I got 37 live black hats wrapped for delivery over here. You wanna send some buddies to pick 'em up?"

"You're in a hot zone."

"Yeah, we wanna get out of here before the neighbors get curious."

"Coming your way. Baby Bear out."

"Bye now."

————————

Five blackhawk helicopters circled over the scene while one landed on the saddle where the Global Justice hoverjet had been parked. "Major Henderson, U.S.M.C., ma'am!" said the first man out of the chopper.

"Kim Possible, my own team and Global Justice agents. These people hijacked a Global Justice plane."

"You're not special forces! Do you have clearance to operate here?"

"Just talked to Baby Bear ten minutes ago," said Kim.

"How'd you get these guys, anyway?" asked Major Henderson.

"Special tactics," said Ron.

"Sad to say, two of them managed to take the plane while we were subduing the others," said Kim.

Henderson picked up his radio. "Harris, Buhne, condor on the wing. Any clicks?"

"Negative" said a crackling voice.

"How long ago did they escape, and what's the maximum speed of the plane?" asked Henderson.

"About 20 minutes, about mach 2," said Kim. "I don't think you're going to find them. By the way, have you always had that pink mole on your neck? Right over there, just beyond where you shave?"

"Been there for a while, anyway. What's your point, Possible?"

"Sheila, come here," Kim said. "What do you think?"

"Looks like the kind to me," she replied, zapping the pink lump with a small green spark from her finger and pulling it off Henderson's neck. Underneath were tiny wiggling robot legs.

"You had a bug, Major Henderson," said Kim. "Strong Horse's geeks have been listening to you, I think."

"What is that thing?" he asked. "It looks like a tick."

"It's a bug that looks like a bug," said Kim. "I wonder if Baby Bear has one stuck on his head? You may all want to check everyone at Kabul base. This is why the black hats always know you're coming."

* * *

_Concluded in Part 3_


	3. Chapter 3

**How Darkness Comes**

**Part 3**

_Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Rufus, Monique, Felix Renton, Wade Load, Dr. Betty Director, Will Du, Dr. Drakken, Shego, Yori, and Hirotaka are characters from the Kim Possible show, created by Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, owned and copyright © by the Walt Disney Company. This is part three of a three-part story, © 2005 by cloudmonet._

* * *

"This is what we're looking for," said Crocodile Jack, on a sandy beach not far from Darwin. "This is the biggest crocodile slide I've ever seen. His front feet are nearly eight feet apart, and he'd be, I don't know, 22 feet, 23 feet long? Two or three tons, maybe, and a hundred fifty years old at least."

"Big Bert, our biggest male at the zoo, is getting near 17 feet long," said Kate, his sensible American wife. "He's big, and when he hits at food he's really scary, but compared to this bloke, he's small."

"So what we're gonna do is catch him in a baited trap, the kind of net trap I always use, scaled up a bit, and then we're gonna give him one of Drake's robot ticks, with a microcamera and compact inner radio antenna. This is real spy gear. Come here, mate, let's show off your work."

"Oh, all right," said Drake Jones, holding one of the ticks up for the camera. "It's about the size of a dime, huge compared to a real tick, but not so much compared to the animal it'll be riding on. It's programmed to crawl to a position on the croc's head midway between the eyes and then lock on."

"We'll have a croc's eye view of his world," said Jack.

"It's solar powered," said Drake. "Whenever our big croc hauls out to bask in the sun, the battery gets recharged."

————————

A small black jet with "KP" monogrammed on the tail flew low over the Borneo Rain Forest. Felix Renton was at the controls, his cyber-robotic wheelchair locked in place.

"Whatever are they doing in Borneo?" Ron asked, while going over his checklist of gear.

"Getting more men, or just trying to hide the plane, I guess," said Kim. "It's not somewhere we'd probably look, and if we do find them, it's not somewhere we can call in an American air strike. We're bailing as close to the site as we can get without spooking them. Wade says Wikiwaki will be watching for us."

"Wikiwaki's our local contact?" asked Ron.

"The wild geek from Borneo," replied Kim. "One of Wade's internet buddies. He's not sure quite how secure the connection is or he'd patch us through to him."

"Thirty seconds to bail," said Felix. "You ready?"

Kim and Ron jumped out, opened their parasails, and drifted across a river toward a beach where, unfortunately, several large crocodiles were sunning themselves. Kim was about to steer into the trees when a bunch of nearly naked brown skinned men with wild curly hair charged out of the jungle, waving spears and shouting. The crocs bolted for the water. The men waved at Kim and Ron, smiling.

"Do you really think they're internet geeks?" asked Ron.

"Just let me do the talking," said Kim.

They drifted to a landing on the beach right in front of the five men, who close up didn't look quite so formidable. One of them was old, and two were rather gangly teenaged boys. All five wore an assortment of colorful feathers in their hair, and hollow gourds covering their private parts.

"Welcome to the jungle," said the smaller boy. "I'm Wikiwaki." He offered his hand to Ron.

"I'm Ron," he said, shaking Wikiwaki's hand.

"And I'm Kim," she said, offering hers.

The old man said, with a thick accent and mangled syntax, what might have been, "I'm Kibakauwa, big old chief daddy. Come you to home. Come."

They all followed old Kibakauwa on a narrow path through the brush into the relative openness of the inner forest.

"These strangers, they're bad," said Wikiwaki. "Been here, couple years. Got shooting guns, make you bleed, make you dead. They kill some jungle men, jungle men kill some them. What means invisible plane? Invisible like spirits? We see the plane on the ground, hidden by clothes, not hidden like spirits."

"They've covered it with a tarp that's hard to see," said Kim. "The plane's only invisible while it's flying."

"How make that do?" asked Wikiwaki.

"You know, I really should read up on that and learn how it works," said Kim. "I'm getting tired of chasing this stupid plane. Everytime we almost get it back, it gets away again."

Kibakauwa stopped walking and looked back at Kim. "You need— spirit magic catcher, huh. I make good strong. Not do much about shooting guns, but spirit catching, huh, Kibakauwa catch many spirits."

"What'd he say?" Ron whispered.

"He figures an invisible plane is a spirit plane," Kim replied. "I said I can't catch it. He says he'll make a magic charm to help me."

"Ahhh, okay," said Ron.

————————

A black helicopter with a two Japanese characters painted on the body came to a landing at a blocklike three story building in the middle of a snowswept rocky plateau in western China. Some large trucks painted olive drab were parked near the landing site. Heavily armed officials stood guard.

The helicopter motor shut off, the blades stopped spinning. Yori, Hirotaka, and George Wind got out of the helicopter and approached the Chinese official.

Yori pressed her hands together and bowed. "Honored general," she said. "You already know Hirotaka-san and I. It has been our honor to serve you in the past. The other man is George Wind, of Global Justice."

George made a slight bow, saying, "Pleased to meet you, honored general."

The general nodded his head very slightly with no change of expression, and said nothing.

"Our mission to you is one of greatest urgency which must be discussed only in a place of extreme security," Yori said. "Wind-san, the tick?"

George Wind handed Yori a soft pink hemisphere the size of a bead, with eight tiny metal legs on the underside. The general looked at it suspiciously.

"This, honored general, is an audio surveillance tick, the kind Global Justice sometimes uses. This one is inactivated, of course. Central Asian Jihad has managed to steal or make a large number of these things. They have managed to place a number of them in offices of Global Justice, the American military base in Kabul, and they said to each other that they wish to place them on people like you in places like this."

"How would they do this?" asked the general.

"They said they were going to drop the ticks from the plane they stole," said Yori. "The ticks are programmed to crawl onto people. They're very much harder to remove than real ticks, and resemble natural skin blemishes."

"We would know if any foreign plane flew anywhere near this installation," replied the general. "None has."

"You may or may not be able to detect this plane, honored general" said George Wind. "Not that I am allowed to reveal its secrets to you, of course."

The general frowned, tipped his head back and toward one side, loosened his uniform collar and pointed to a small mole on his neck. "This is new," he said. "Is it?"

Yori looked at it closely. Hirotaka reached into the pocket of his black leather jacket and handed her a remote-control sized silicon phase disrupter. "This will deactivate it, if it is," she said, holding the device close to the mole and pressing a button. "Well, maybe not," she said, when nothing seemed to happen, but then suddenly the legs retracted and the bug fell onto the general's jacket collar and Yori picked it up. "Looks like we have to check everyone here before we talk about the rest," she said.

————————

Deep in the Borneo rain forest, the five jungle men with Kim and Ron stopped at the trunk of a large tree. Big old chief daddy Kibakauwa grabbed a dangling vine and began climbing.

"I don't see a tree house," Ron said, looking up into the tangle of foliage.

"We'll see it when we get there," said Kim, starting to climb up the vine after Wikiwaki.

They followed the men from branch to branch, across a high rope bridge with a rope railing into a thick clump of foliage, and finally three houses made of woven sticks like bird's nests on top of large branches from several intertangled trees.

The floor, such as it was, bounced and creaked whenever anyone walked anywhere, which made Ron nervous, but what really made him nervous were the women and girls, who, except for what passed for jewelry, were completely nude. He kept averting or covering his eyes, and looked at Kim, who just smiled at him.

"It's okay to look if you don't stare," she whispered. "This is just how they are."

"What's up with Ron?" Wikiwaki asked Kim. "Anyway, this is Limau, she's my friend."

"Well, maybe don't look at her," said Kim. "She's really pretty."

Ron looked and Kim giggled and poked him in the ribs.

"Confused," said Limau. "Right word?" she asked Wikiwaki.

"I'm sorry," said Kim, smiling at her. "Ron's just not used to seeing girls, except me sometimes, without clothes." Kim pulled at one sleeve of her mission shirt.

"Not like clothes," said Limau. "Gotta wear in town. Makes you sweat and stink. Some town stuff good, though. Computer, internet, TV, video games. Got solar power computer and satellite internet here now."

Wikiwaki proudly opened a plastic box, and got out a laptop computer. "You want see?"

"Not right now," said Kim. "We gotta hurry, if we're gonna get that plane away from those strangers."

"You gonna get rid strangers?" Limau asked.

"Not sure we can," said Kim. "The important thing to us is the spirit plane. Those strangers want to do really bad stuff with it."

"Oh, 9/11," said Limau. "They're those people."

"I wish it was only that bad," said Kim.

One of the older women brought a wooden bowl filled with hot food that vaguely resembled mashed potatoes.

"Food, eat," said Wikiwaki, sticking his bare hands into whatever it was, and stuffing gobs of it into his mouth. Limau did the same.

Kim took off her mission gloves and cautiously tried some. "It's kind of sweet, like yams or something," she said.

"Ten to one it's neither Mexican nor kosher," said Ron, "but okay, I won't be rude."

Rufus hopped onto the table, sniffed at the bowl of food, said, "Yippie!" and began eating.

"Ewww, what's that thing?" asked Limau. "Looks like a big big grub with legs and whiskers."

"That's Rufus, my naked mole rat," said Ron, affectionately stroking the odd creature's head. "He's my good buddy."

"Don't try to eat him, okay?" said Kim.

————————

"And here he is, the world's largest saltwater crocodile, in the net trap," said Crocodile Jack, carefully approaching the tangle of knotted ropes and broken tree branches. "Holy moley, will you look at this? He broke an eight-inch tree trunk, thrashing around. I'm not sure exactly how we're gonna release him. He's even bigger than I thought! Well, first thing's first, let's get the camera on him."

Drake handed the dime-sized robot tick to Crocodile Jack, who tossed it toward the huge crocodile's body. Unfortunately at that moment the crocodile started whipping his head from side to side, throwing the tick completely off.

"We've got three more chances," said Jack.

"Attempt number two," Kate narrated. "Jack, Drake, and the rest of the crew tried to cover the big bloke's head with a tarp. This might have worked, except he went into a death roll, completely ripping the stakes out of the ground and totally entangling himself in coarse netting. Tick number two? We don't know where it is, and its transmitter is broken. It's dead."

"So it's top and bottom jaw rope time, and that wasn't routine, not with the heavy ropes we need to secure this big bloke," Jack narrated, over footage showing repeated attempts. "And even then, there weren't enough of us to hold him, till a helicopter crew of American marines showed up, with two Global Justice agents and Drake's wife Sheila." Some exciting pan shots showed a whole crowd of people piled on top of the humongous crocodile.

"Sheila was the one who actually placed the tick, right on the big bloke's head between the eyes where we wanted it," Kate narrated. "It didn't even have to crawl, but locked right into position. As near as we could measure him, he's 26 feet long. That's a world record."

"Now, the question was, how of earth were we ever going to get the big bloke out of the trap?" Jack narrated. "I worked my way around, cutting most of the heavy netting with my big knife. He was being kind of placid, but when I cut the jaw ropes and everybody hopped off and scattered fast, he shook his head and tail, and instead of going back in the water, he came after us! He did not like being mucked with, one bit."

"Here's what the rampage looked like from Big Bloke's point of view," said Kate. "There were so many of us running that he couldn't make up his mind who to chase. But he's a lunge predator, and as you can see, he's getting tired and slowing down pretty quickly, and here's how it looks to him when he slides into the water."

————————

Will Du and Steve Rasp talked to Crocodile Jack, off-camera.

"We need Drake, now," Will said.

"They're not arresting us, sweetheart," said Sheila. "This is important. That invisibility technology Global Justice, er, borrowed from your helicopter, is there any possible way to send a signal that would disable it from outside?"

"Spraying it with soda apparently works," said Drake.

"Not practical for a plane doing mach 2," said Sheila.

"Um, yes, quite right. If I had a laboratory, and access to components, I might be able to come up with something. Have you tried a silicon phase disrupter?"

"It's shielded against silicon phase disruption," said Will Du. "Let's go. We've got you a lab, and a test vehicle shielded and cloaked just like the plane. Let's see how fast you can come up with something."

————————

In a blank-walled room in the heart of the building, General Chao spoke with Yori, Hirotaka, and George Wind.

"The terrorists called the thing they wanted, 'the dragonslayer,' " said Yori. "We believe this would be some kind of highly compact superbomb, something so powerful that it would make a crater like Chixulub, from the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs."

"That seems absurd to me," said Chao. "If we had such a device, how would we test it?"

"Anything made with encapsulated antimatter will detonate if the encapsulating material is melted," said Yori. "The more antimatter, the bigger the explosion. You could test a very small device, and make a very big one. These terrorists have an invisible plane. They can fly over Washington or New York as easily as here, crash into a building, or let themselves be shot down, and the flames of the explosion will melt the encapsulated antimatter, and then millions will die."

"If China had such a weapon, and I'm not saying we do, but if we did, it would be so well hidden and guarded that there's no way a small squad of terrorists could get their hands on it," said Chao.

"And the terrorists who've been listening to your talk for several days with audio surveillance ticks, what have they learned?" asked Yori. "What if one of them was attached to Dr. Fu? What then, honored general?"

"There's nothing Dr. Fu could say that would help them much," Chao said, pushing a button on his watch. He smiled at Yori. "Now we're off the record, my friend. Unfortunately, we're at the wrong installation. And our enemies probably know which one is the right one. It is heavily guarded, I didn't lie about that, and yet, what if someone on the inside makes common cause with the terrorists? We try to encourage everyone in our country to think correctly, but many do not. I will, of course, be expected to contact this installation. We will do what we can. And, being Chinese, we can do quite a lot."

A lesser officer came in and escorted Yori, Hirotaka, and George Wind out of the building and back to the black helicopter.

"That was less than satisfactory," said Hirotaka.

"I'm not sure what we should do next," said Yori.

"I'm feeling much better about this," said George. "I think everything's going to turn out all right."

"And your basis for this is what?" asked Hirotaka.

"I have confidence in the honored general's ability. I'm Chinese too. I know how to read them. That terrorist squad will not succeed."

————————

At twilight, Wikiwaki was leading Kim and Ron on hidden trails through the jungle toward the Central Asian Jihad encampment when they heard the sound of the hoverjet taking off. The dark plane passed over the tops of the trees before shimmering into disappearance.

Kim pulled out her kimmunicator. "Wade, they got away again," she said. "We're so not winning this one and we so must."

"Probably going back to China," Wade replied. "Yori did not get to the right research installation, and they're not allowing her to proceed. George Wind thinks the Chinese have matters under control."

"What's Yori think? I trust her opinion more than any of these Global Justice guys."

"She's not happy," said Wade.

"My father's spirit catching spell didn't work," Wikiwaki told Wade. "The plane went into the spirit world."

"Don't know much about Borneo magic," said Wade. "Might not work on spirit planes."

"We tried."

The screen split, and Felix appeared on the other half. "I'm down at Lake Tumakoi, three kilometers downhill."

"Lake Tumakoi?" said Wikiwaki. "I know where that is, but I don't want to go there."

"More bad strangers?" asked Ron.

"Just people I don't want to see. Limau's family. Always argue about stuff. Don't like me, don't like each other, don't like Limau."

"Got it," said Kim. "We'll find our own way."

————————

"Sheila, a breakthrough!" said Drake, in the middle of a brightly-lit auto showroom with the merest shimmery vagueness of a car over the carpeting.

Sheila, who was sitting in the corner reading a magazine, said, "It still looks pretty invisible to me."

"Yes, it does," said Drake, "but look at this!"

"Uh, okay," she said, getting up and walking to his computer monitor, which showed a grainy picture of the inside of the invisible car. "Wait a minute! You're getting a signal from the communicator thing inside the car!"

"Nice job of descrambling, isn't it? Now we don't have to see the plane to find it."

"I'll go tell Will."

"Wait!" said Drake, walking over to the car and feeling for the door. Once he stuck his head inside, he could see the communicator. He pulled it out of the car, pressed the buttons, and said, "Wade, I out-geeked you. Check out the descrambling program on the showroom computer. You should be able to get a signal from the communicator on board the plane."

"Okay, downloading—" said Wade. "Are you on dialup there? This is gonna take hours we don't have. Try copying the program to the communicator and beaming it to me."

"Sure, I can do that," said Drake, plugging the communicator into a USB-2 line.

It popped up on the computer as an auxiliary hard disk, Drake copied the file, and after about thirty seconds, Wade said, "Got it! And it works! The plane's over Cambodia, heading west. Drake, you saved the world!"

"It's not saved yet," said Drake. "Not till someone stops them."

"A mere formality," said Wade. "Go tell Will and Steve."

————————

General Chao sat patiently watching the progress bar move on one of his computer monitors. On another monitor was a map of Southeast Asia, with a blinking light indicating the progress and position of the terrorist plane as patched through by Mr. Load. It was moving on a fairly straight course over Burma, having already passed over Cambodia and Thailand on its way from Borneo. By the time it reached Tibet and Chinese airspace, the detection and decryption programs would be loaded in his own, very sensitive signal detectors.

————————

Guided by the kimmunicator's GPS, Kim and Ron finally made their way through the shadowy jungle to the open moonlight of Lake Tumakoi, where Kim's jet was floating on pontoons near the shore. "Felix!" she called out, and he turned on the plane's spotlights and aimed them toward her. She shot a grappling hook at the plane's wing, grabbed Ron, and swung over the water to land on the pontoon.

Inside the plane, Ron babbled to Felix about jungle nudists, with laptops and mashed potatoes, living in basketwork treehouses, while Kim kept trying the kimmunicator without success.

"I can't reach Wade," she told Ron and Felix. "This is critical. We need to go to China ASAP, but we need Wade to get us flight path clearance."

"I'll just fly over the Indian Ocean toward eastern India," said Felix. "By the time we get there, you should be able to get through."

"Do it," said Kim. "It's not the shortest route, but it might be better if they don't know we're chasing them."

"Why don't you try to call Yori?" Ron asked while bucking his seatbelt.

"Okay, I'll do that," said Kim. "What's going on? It looks like Wade's changing the encryption routine again." On the screen was a random assortment of color changes, patterns, and a number of progress bars.

"Maybe we should wait till Wade gets through," said Felix. "This is obviously something important."

"Yeah, okay," said Kim.

Wade's face appeared on the screen. "Sorry about the delay. You're at the lake, right? You got there sooner than I thought. I didn't want to run the encryption routine while you were using GPS, or talk before running the encryption."

"So what's the sitch?"

"The terrorists are flying over Burma. We can trace them now by the signal from Yori's communicator, thanks to Drake Jones. I gave China Drake's program, and the decryption for the old communicator routine, which is why I had to give you new encryption. So, China will shoot them down with heat-seeking missiles, end of plot."

"We're off the case?" asked Kim.

"Go to Darwin. There's a few details to wrap up with Global Justice."

"About Drake and Sheila?"

"Yeah."

"Drakken just saved the world, didn't he?" asked Ron. "I never thought that would happen."

"Uh-uh," agreed Rufus.

————————

Nothing could be seen in the moonlit sky, and ordinary radar could not detect it, but a Global Justice hoverjet crowded with a squad of determined men was passing over the Tibetan plateau, heading toward a secret installation in the Kun Lun. They never made it there. A voice from a hidden radio said, in Chinese, "You have fifteen seconds to eject."

It was actually sixteen seconds after this that the invisible plane exploded in a very visible fireball of jet fuel as three heat-seeking missiles struck their mark.

"I did warn them," said General Chao, watching the fireball through his big binoculars.

"They had our personnel bugged, and seemed to know what we were saying, honored general," said one of his aides. "I believe a warning in Chinese was sufficient."

"Perhaps it actually was," said Chao, passing the binoculars to another officer. "I think I see black parachutes. Bring back any survivors for interrogation."

"Are there to be any survivors, honored general?"

"Not officially, at least not at first."

————————

"I don't like the way this General Chao just took over, even before we gave him Drake's descrambling program," said Kim. "How could he have stopped them without that?"

It was morning in Darwin. Kim, Ron, Drake, Sheila, and the agents were sitting on the couches of an out-of-business auto showroom, refitted as an impromptu engineering and computer lab, with esoteric radar gear spread on the counter, and several computers on a desk.

"I don't think he would have stopped them," said George Wind. "I think he would have let them steal a false bomb."

"I wouldn't bet the fate of America on something like that," said Ron.

"Those terrorists got exactly what they deserved," said Will Du. "I have no sympathy for them. It's really best that they fell into the grip of someone like Chao."

"Sympathy, no, not when they wanted to kill so many," said Kim. "And we really don't know how close they came to succeeding. Drake, you saved the world. This bomb, if they'd gotten a real one, could have blown up not only Washington, but that secret bunker in West Virginia, and maybe as far as Philadelphia. There'd be a big round bay where Maryland used to be, huge tsunamis all over the Atlantic, maybe the other oceans, as well, and a dust cloud— I don't know. Would it be as bad as Chixulub? Tens of millions would have died, and not just in America."

"I don't know if we can get a pardon for Drew and Sheila Lipsky, alias Drakken and Shego," said Will Du. "They committed many heinous crimes in many nations. In my opinion it's only a matter of luck that they never actually committed murder or manslaughter. However, I see no reason to collect fingerprints or hair samples from Drake and Sheila Jones. These are obviously different people." He dropped his voice. "See that you stay that way."

"No worries, mate," said Sheila.

Drake was over at one of the computers, admiring a view of a very large crocodile snout pointed motionlessly at some sand and mangrove roots. "He's not doing much right now, but it's a great quality picture," Drake remarked.

————————

A noisy yellow motorcycle drove right through the open doorway onto the carpet, and Hirotaka and Yori got off and removed their helmets. Both were wearing cutoffs. Hirotaka wore a white T-shirt with a heavy metal band's logo, and Yori a bright red kerchief halter top.

"How is everyone?" asked Yori, looking in particular at Drake, Sheila, and Will.

"I'm not too happy about the prospect of facing a disciplinary for losing our plane," said Will. "Global Justice agents aren't supposed to let themselves be surprised by terrorists."

"You were bugged at your own office," said Kim. "Even Dr. Director didn't catch on in time."

"You noticed the surveillance tick. We should have," said Will.

"A lot of people didn't notice them. Your engineers designed them that way."

"And how are you, Dr. Jones?" asked Yori.

"He's looking at some mangrove roots from the viewpoint of a humongous croc dozed off on the beach," said Sheila.

"Oh, what?" asked Drake, looking away from his monitor toward Yori and Hirotaka. "That's a good band," he remarked, pointing at the shirt logo. "Sheila downloaded some of their songs— legally, of course, Officer Du."

"Of course," Will said with a smirk. "Well, you're our ticket home, Kim, so whenever you're ready."

"Oh," said Yori, "but I was going to ask Kim, if you and Ron want to come with us on the boat we rented. We can snorkel on the reef and there's little sand islands with some coconut palms."

"That sounds fun, but we've already missed a whole week of classes, and—"

"It's Saturday morning here, so it's already late Friday afternoon there," said Ron. "What do we miss? I vote for party time."

"Party time?" asked Felix, who was just rolling into the showroom. "I could use some of that."

"It means we'd be staying in Australia through the weekend," said Kim. "Don't you want to get back to Belinda?"

"Can you swim, somehow?" asked Ron. "Is there some gear we could rent, like those hand-held electric propeller things I've seen on TV? The reef is really beautiful."

"Oh that sounds totally fun," said Felix. "About Belinda— Kim, we're both not sure it's working between us. You guys don't like her all that much—"

"She's just different," said Kim. "We're getting used to her."

"I'm all science and engineering and she's all mystical. We think about everything differently. I'm much more like you guys."

"Who does think like Belinda?" Ron asked, his face a mockery of contemplation.

"Let's get real," said Felix. "She's whacked. I like touching her, kissing her, making love. I'm really glad she got me past that barrier, I can do it— but now she's saying maybe we worked out our karma and it's time to move onto other things. Feels creepy."

"Ask Kelly," said Sheila.

"What?"

"The dark-haired girl from Crocodile Jack's crew. You want a date for the weekend, don't you? Kelly's adventurous, looks great in a bikini, and you're not much like the boys she complains about. She's a few years older than you, but so what? Come on, sport, I'll introduce you."

"Um, all right!" said Felix.

"Right, okay, going back to Jack with my wife," said Drake, smiling at the agents and edging out the doorway after Sheila and Felix. "See you later. Bye now."

"Okay, let's do this," Kim told Ron, Yori, and Hirotaka. "We'll go to the airstrip, get the stealth bike and some lighter clothes, and meet you at the harbor."

The motorcycle roared away, followed by Kim and Ron.

"So, what are we gonna do?" Steve asked Will. "Call headquarters to send someone to get us, or sample the nightlife of Darwin?"

Will made a sound of disgust. "They're gonna laugh at me, but I don't care anymore. This is the most humiliating mission I've ever attempted. I just want it to be over."

"What do you mean?" asked George. "Our side won. Isn't that what matters?"

"Okay," said Steve, picking up the telephone. "Let's see if _I_ remember the access codes for the hotline."

————————

Kim and Ron carried Felix from his chair on the beach to the seat of the stealth bike, which was floating on the water in jetski mode. Kelly climbed onto the seat behind him.

"Keep it slow till you get the hang of it, okay?" said Kim.

"It's not good to go fast in these waters anyway, all right?" said Kelly. "We don't want to hurt the wildlife. Don't worry, Kim. I won't let anything happen to him. And if you go swimming while I'm gone, don't touch anything pointy, stay away from cone snails, and if you see any jellyfish, get out of the water immediately."

"Nice vacation spot Yori picked," said Ron.

"It's beautiful," said Kelly. "You just gotta be careful."

————————

On the boat, anchored in the shallow water, Yori and Hirotaka were looking over the side at the colorful reef fish. "Yori, may I ask you something?" She tipped her head to one side and smiled a slight smile.

"What did you call me when you kissed me on the cheek at the cattle station?"

Now her smile became wide and she blushed. "I called you 'my love.' I wanted you to know, in case I was killed. I wanted you to know, when we met again. Hirotaka, you are my love. Now tell me what I am to you." She pressed her hands together and bowed her head.

"I made a haiku for you," Hirotaka replied.

"I weep for my love

stranded in hidden mountains

cold with plans of death."

Yori smiled at him, melted into his arms, and filled his mouth with her twirling tongue. "Better not mess with any other girls," she said, smiling at him and playing with his wild hair.

"Wouldn't think of it."

"Better save up money to buy me a ring— size 8, okay?"

"Yori—"

"Do you want me to be your love but not your bride?"

"No, no, of course not."

She kissed him again. "You don't expect me to stop telling you what to do just because I love you, do you?"

"I would like the honor of some discussion."

"Of course," Yori said, putting her arm around Hirotaka's waist.

————————

Kim and Ron sat with their backs against a young palm tree, looking at the first stars over the quiet reef water. Rufus was sleeping in their beach bag.

"This'd be a nice place for our honeymoon, don't you think?" Kim asked. "We'll come back here alone, just you and me on the sand, with the gently lapping sea and the stars."

"And a reef full of poisonous stingy things," said Ron. "I don't know about coming here alone."

"I think we're alone right now."

"Let's see, Yori and Hirotaka are on the boat, Felix and Kelly went to that other island."

"That seems sad to me," said Kim. "How can they play at being a couple for a weekend, and then just separate?"

"I never wanted to be with anyone but you," said Ron. "When I was little, I always thought we'd just grow up and be married."

"That's sweet. I never should have wanted to be with anyone but you."

She got up, walked over to the purple beach blanket, and shook out the sand. He walked over to her, took the other end, and they spread it out smooth. Kim pushed Ron down on the blanket, snuggled on top of him, and they started kissing.

* * *

_Next Adventure: Reward_


End file.
